Beatrice Wood

1893Born San Francisco, California

1998Died Ojai, California

EDUCATION

UnknownStudied acting at the Comedie-Francaise, Paris

UnknownStudied painting at the Academie Julian, Paris

1938Studied ceramics with Glen Lukens

PRIMARY WORK EXPERIENCE

1947Independent Studio Potter, Ojai, California

Beatrice "BEATO" Wood is known for loosely formed vessels reflective of her interest in Bohemian styles and folk art. She developed a series of characteristic all over luster glazes achieved by reduction firings. Her early work features these glazes on utilitarian dinnerware and domestic vessels. She soon moved onto more complicated forms and structures. 

Wood began working with clay after moving to Southern California in 1933. She led an eccentric, artistic career before her formal ceramics training began.  She  immersed herself in the Paris and New York Dada and Modern art scenes of the early twentieth century. When she moved back to California, she studied first with Glen Lukens and later with Gertrud and Otto Natzler. Wood also made a number of tile paintings that referenced her early associations with the Cubist and Dada artists, including Marcel Duchamp.

In 1947, Wood built a house and studio in Ojai, California. She became friends with fellow ceramists, Vivika and Otto Heino, who would later purchase her Ojai house and studio.  They helped her develop the luster glazes she used throughout her career. Her second home, Happy Valley, is now the Beatrice Wood Center for the Art. Its mission is to preserve the legacy of Wood’s long artistic career. Beatrice Wood passed away in 1998 at the age of 105. 

During her lifetime, her work was recognized in exhibitions at major museums including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

An interview with Beatrice Wood conducted August 26, 1976 by Paul Karlstrom, for the Nanette Laitman Documentation Project for the Archives of American Art is available at:
http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/interviews/oral-history-interview-beatrice-wood-12423.